wedding memories

Two years ago I married my husband. Today I am knocked up. I love how life moves, but I also like re-visiting great memories. My husband and I chose to be married on Martin Luther King Jr. Observance weekend initially to give those in school coming to our wedding a chance to use their three day weekend but the more we thought about it the more it seemed right. Our mixed race marriage may not have been granted 50 years ago and we owe MLK Jr. a lot for helping the U. S. become a more tolerant place. As we approach our anniversary we love how it is preceded five days by his birthday since we owe him a great deal.

As far as our wedding we had a blast. We took some close friends and family with us down to Costa Rica for a week, then bounced between Costa Rica and Panama for a few days after. For many it was their first time getting a passport and all of our guest still look back on the time we showed them. The first night in San Jose was a welcome dinner and my niece’s sweet 16, my matron of honor was pregnant with her first babe but early enough to be able to keep up with us and have ample hammock breaks, we did a service project for the community we were in, there was so much we packed into a week and it was nice to end in our wedding before we said bye to our nearest and dearest. Here are a bunch of pics, enjoy.Night before the wedding doing henna for my hubby’s feet. Hubby working on music playlist. My niece, Kia, crashed out on the couch.

Day of wedding the bridal party went surfing. Me on board, hubby behind me getting ready for his wave. I lost track of time and didn’t leave the beach until 2 hours before the ceremony, oops.

The wedding went well though. We married on the beach in Punta Uva. We did our own ceremony with Buddhist and Christian readings. This is after we jumped the broom.

Hubby surprised me by hiring a sitar player. I was supposed to walk down the aisle to Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” but marched to live sitar instead.

The feast was awesome and local we ate gallo pinto a neighbor made, ceviche, green beans from a nearby farm, jerk chicken a lady in town made, and grilled pineapple. Plates were banana leaves cut from the property. Glasses were wine bottles pulled from the area’s recycling pile and cut then sanded down. I made the tablecloth and napkins.

Baking a cake in the tropics SUCKS so we opted for this version of a croquembouche filled with agave sweetened cream and topped with local chocolate that friends made while we surfed. The chocolate was harvested from the adjacent interior by a BriBri chocolate lady. And of course LEGO sent us a cake topper. We had custom bricks printed though.

Hubby was not the only one with surprises that day. I spun poi for him to one of our favorite songs from the Monsoon Wedding soundtrack. I was relieved to finally be able to drink once I was done playing with fire.

The morning after we took a hike with our photog to play for the camera. This was actually a scary pic. We were at the edge of a cliff with a 50+ foot drop and crashing waves below us.

As everyone got ready to leave us alone the day after we accompanied them to nearby Puerto Viejo for a few more pics including with local grafitti.

We went to over the water bungalows in Bocas del Toro Panama for a couple of days to chill out. This was at 6 AM in the morning since our neighbors in nearby bungalows were up at 4:30 to get ready for a fishing trip. When we emerged from our mosquito net covered bed we found geckos on our already filled champagne glasses getting drunk.

The bungalows were great to play around with kayaks and snorkeling.

As well as just being drunk and stupid.

When we returned to Costa Rica we paddled the Pacuare. The weenie behind Terry was in lead position with him but was a lily-dipper so the guide had me pair up with Terry instead. I actually had paddling experience so it was no issue.

It was a great wedding and we carry great memories. I love my husband and look forward to the challenges and triumphs we face as we start our family together. Next year we may be back in Costa Rica for our anniversary with our baby if I go through with shooting a wedding in the location we were married at. One of our dreams is to take our kids to the place we were married. Namaste and thanks for looking.